


Now They See Sky

by HopefulNebula



Category: Firefly
Genre: Community: 2by2fics, Gen, Vignette, fixed length
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-12
Updated: 2011-11-12
Packaged: 2017-10-26 00:38:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefulNebula/pseuds/HopefulNebula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"Wherefore weep you?" "At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer what I desire to give, and much less take what I desire to want."</em> 10 interconnected vignettes of increasing length about River's life and growth on Serenity, through the end of the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now They See Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [2by2fics](http://2by2fics.livejournal.com) general table 01. The summary and the quote in part 08 come from _The Tempest_ by William Shakespeare.

**01 (Silence)**  
The only thing River misses from _before_ is the silence.

 **02 (Trust)**  
These facts never leave her while the rest of her is jumbled: Simon loves her and she can trust him.

 **03 (Dream)**  
Her dreams are bizarre, her reality more so. It's the only way she can tell the two apart, except for the days she can't. Illusion can be realer than life.

 **04 (Help)**  
Just because she knows Simon is trying to help doesn't mean she won't put up a fight when he takes her to the infirmary. She knows the difference between _trying_ and _doing_ , but her brother hasn't learned that lesson yet.

 **05 (Misplaced)**  
It doesn't escape River that everyone else on the crew serves a function. She knows Mal and Zoe make decisions, Wash and Kaylee keep Serenity alive, Simon fixes people-not-her, Inara brings civilization to the crew, and Book provides two kinds of nourishment.

She doesn't know where her place is here.

 **06 (Insanity)**  
Insanity isn't when she puts bullets into the hearts of three men without looking or flinching. (Three lives for nine is more than fair.)

Insanity isn't speaking in non sequiturs. (She speaks; not her fault they don't comprehend.) It isn't soup in hair or knives in shirts. (Flesh is collateral damage.)

Insanity is thinking everything that can be fixed, _should_.

 **07 (Forever)**  
She can never imagine much past _now_. There's too much present in her mind to leave room for future. For her, each moment is new, the past forgotten in a second, each action without consequence.

When memory overtakes her, it's never without reason. She knows what she needs to, but she never understands why remembering is important or what significance it has.

She does remember this: no memory lasts forever.

 **08 (Sleep)**  
When Simon puts her to sleep, she dreams. She sees faces shocked in the Maidenhead, a head snapped unnaturally away from its body. She sees a screen full of pixels and numbers and code flashing past her eyes and into her brain.

She sees a planet. She sees a tempest. _You have often begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd, and left me to a bootless inquisition, concluding "Stay, not yet."_

She wakes, finally knowing what she is.

 **09 (Dangerous)**  
She is a weapon. Finely tuned and made of grace, but a weapon all the same. She has killed before, will do it again soon. It's her nature. They made it her nature.

She can see now how dangerous she's been, how much of a risk keeping her was. But she won't leave now. No power in the 'Verse will take her from these people now. They've fought for her.

Today, she knows through to her bones that it's her turn.

She is a weapon, but she can aim herself.

 **10 (Memory)**  
Simon tells her these people died for a greater cause than her alone. It's not true, and she knows it. There would never have _been_ a greater cause without her being meddled with. She can see that now.

She sees it in Zoe's tearful eyes across Wash's grave. She sees it in the empty seat on the bridge and the tin of rosemary nobody dares touch. She sees it in small plastic dinosaurs, in symbols torn from ancient text.

She can remember on her own now, can remember whatever she chooses.

She chooses to remember _them_. It is her duty.


End file.
